Mystical Beast Master (True Solo)

“There are truths which can only be seen when the eyes are guided by paws.” — Erin Hunter, Warriors: Forest of Secrets

POV:

You play so many roles they call you "9 lives". You don't have time to deal with bipeds, you're better off spending all your money on saving living Creature around, until you can form the ultimate pack.

| Difficulty:||★★★☆☆ - Lola will always be a bit tricker to play than your average investigator. However, most of the difficult decisions here rely on choosing the right role at the right moment. The deck is otherwise fairly simple to run.

| Enemy Management:||★★★★☆ - Very good for true solo. Once you have 2 dogs on the board it's difficult to lose fights.

| Clue-getting:||★★★★☆ - Great at investigating easier locations, with a couple of events for harder locations.

| Encounter protection:||★★☆☆☆ - Not the best, but you have some skills and events to save your ass from nasty treacheries.

| Survivability:||★★★★☆ - This deck transforms a pretty fragile investigator like Lola into a tanking machine. Only got defeated once... by the doom clock.

| Economy:||★★★★☆ - You might get a lot of spare resources by the end of each scenario. The deck has a LOT of cards that reduce the cost of your assets.

| Card Drawing:||★★★☆☆ - Most of the card draw will come with upgrades (mostly by events), the early campaign will feel a bit dry.

Mystical Beast Master is a and Lola deck that embraces animal companions, flexible events, and a surprising degree of damage output and tankiness. This version was tested in The Scarlet Keys campaign and successfully completed it with a total of 33 xp (including 5 from the resolution).

The star of the show? A high-velocity sled dog stampede powered by some weird rods and a bit of sacrifice and resurrection shenanigans.

How to play this deck (and avoid not being stuck in the bad role):

• Lola Hayes's ability to play, commit or even trigger abilities on cards recquires a bit of prep each turn. You will have to be a bit familiar with Lola beforehand since she can be tough for newer players. Once you're familiar with her Taboo changes and the way phases work in the game, you'll find that this deck was also built in a way to avoid any frustrating turns where you can't play a damn card.

• This deck relies on a lot of neutral cards to do most of the basics tests. Try to mulligan for them since they will never be dead cards. Once you have your resource engine (Rod of Animalism), your investigation tool (Flashlight) and enemy managmen pets (Sled Dog), you will be pretty much set up for the whole game.

• You will find that choosing as the starting role is pretty usefull with Motivational Speech. Once you are in the middle of a fight with some Guard Dog or a Grete Wagner on the board, you might want to switch to this class to trigger multiple cards at once.

• General rule: It's a good idea to switch to at the end of the round if you have some protection events (Perseverance, Lucky!) or (Take Heart when you know you're about to fail a test. I found out that its generally the best role to chose by default, and once you have Miss Doyle (with her kitten) and a pair of sled dogs, you can do almost anything without switching ever again.

• Most are better to play/commit during your investigation phase, whe you need clues, to pass a difficult test, or when you know you're about to lose an ally.

• There will only be one or two instances where you will switch to the neutral role: either after drawing Crisis of Identity and discarding a neutral card, or because you played Improvisation with the intention of playing a Sled Dog. Either way, it's always better to stick to by deafult.

• Crisis of Identity is most of the time a minor inconvenience, so don't try to play around it.

Clue Acquisition

• Flashlight and it's upgraded version will be your main sources of clues during the game. Emergency Cache will be a good source of supplies for it if you ever run out of steam.
• For the tougher locations or ones that have 2+ clues, try to fail a test with "Look what I found!", don't be afraid to be Drawn to the Flame or to Play with fire.
• Augur will also help you out, but since he's a bit shy, you might not see it very often during your run. Mysterious Raven is a better option at the start of the campaign, and can help you trigger some death-related effects.

Enemy Management

• Biting monsters with a pack of Sled Doggos will be your favorite way of killing monsters, but since it can take some time to gather 2+, it's crucial to fetch them pretty early. Hard mulligan for them and try to grab them with Flare (the 1xp is honestly worth it). If you are not lucky and some effects make you discard some pets, you can replay them with A Chance Encounter. Since triggering them doesn't recquire any specific role, you can easily commit skills like Inspiring Presence, Take the Initiative or Promise of Power to the test, depending on your current role.

• For Monsters with 1 remaining health, you will find that Guard Dog are very usefull. Don't forget you can use them to kill a small enemy very fast with it's ability (you will be able to tank it most of the time without any problem).

• Flare can also be used to kill a 3-helth enemy if you are in a bad situation (no ready doggos or no doogos at all :/)

Economy and Draw

• Motivational Speech is good to drop allies cheap, accelerating tempo for or Neutral allies, just like Improvisation.

• Take Heart is a very good skill when you have a spear action and lack some steam. Don't hesitate to use it if you don't find your precious pets.

• Emergency Cache will offer a nice boost to your economy, but it will be also pretty valuable with Flashlight.

• Eldritch Initiation and it's better version Protecting the Anirniq are powerfull ways of digging into your deck quicker in order to find your allies.

• Starting XP: Take 1 mental and 1 physical trauma with In the Thick of It. Start with 1 copy of Miss Doyle and 2 copies of Rod of Animalism, which will allow you to have 3 allies on the board, making Lola Hayes less fragile, something crucial within the first few scenarios where you lack xp.

• Early upgrades: Swap Flashlight and Guard Dog for their repective buffed versions as soon as possible, you will feel the difference !

• Later upgrades: As the finale approches, don't be shy and take some Exile cards like Flare or Burn After Reading, which are very good at solving some difficult situations. At least 1 copy of Emergency Cache is also strong for the consistency of your Flashlight strategy.

• Potential upgrades: more copies of A Chance Encounter, Lucky! and/or better skills like Inspiring Presence, Guts, more clue managment if you find it a bit harder than expected, like "Look what I found!". You might even want other allies like Grete Wagner which are a bit off-theme but will help a lot regarding investigation and combat.

Strengths

• The deck thrived in maps with multiple distant objectives, thanks to a fluffy devoted pack. It also performed surprisingly well in damage/horror-heavy scenarios thanks to high soak and ally-based economy.

• Sometimes, having a ally being defeated was even good with the card draw and later recursion. It's not that much of a problem to lose a dog, even if it's always a bit saddening.

• The damage output is pretty suprising and reliable since it's based on a group of neutral cards.

Final Thoughts

This deck offers another vision of Lola—one where she’s not trying to juggle spells and tomes and guns, but instead leading a whole menagerie into the unknown. It's efficient, thematic, and even fun to play! Ther's nothing like running back and forth a large map with your dogs, especially when you're indoor.

If you’ve always wanted Lola to feel like a real flex character with teeth, claws, and heart, this deck was meant for you.